Patty Hearst

Ad blocker interference detected!

Wikia is a free-to-use site that makes money from advertising. We have a modified experience for viewers using ad blockers

Wikia is not accessible if you’ve made further modifications. Remove the custom ad blocker rule(s) and the page will load as expected.

Patricia Campbell Hearst (born February 20, 1954), now known as Patricia Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress and occasional actress.

The granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, she gained notoriety in 1974 when, following her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), she ultimately joined her captors in furthering their cause. Apprehended after having taken part in a bank robbery with other SLA members, Hearst was imprisoned for almost two years before her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter. She was later granted a presidential pardon by President Bill Clinton.

Contents

Hearst was born in Sacramento, California, the third of five daughters of Randolph Apperson Hearst and Catherine Wood Campbell. She grew up primarily in the wealthy San Francisco suburb of Hillsborough, California She attended Crystal Springs Uplands School for Girls in Hillsborough and the Santa Catalina School for Girls in Monterey, California. Among her few close friends she counted Patricia Tobin, whose family founded the Hibernia Bank, a branch of which Hearst would later aid in robbing.

On February 4, 1974, the 19-year-old Hearst was kidnapped from the Berkeley, California, apartment she shared with her fiancé Steven Weed, by a left-wing, urban guerrilla group called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). When the attempt to swap Hearst for jailed SLA members failed, the SLA demanded that the captive's family distribute $70 worth of food to every needy Californian -- an operation that would cost an estimated $400 million. In response, Hearst's father arranged the immediate donation of $6 million worth of food to the poor of the Bay Area. After the distribution of food, the SLA refused to release Hearst because they deemed the food to have been of poor quality. (In a subsequent tape recording released to the press, Hearst commented that her father could have done better.)

On April 15, 1974, she was photographed wielding an assault rifle while robbing the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank at 1450 Noriega Street in San Francisco. Later communications from her were issued under the pseudonym Tania (from the nickname of guerrilla Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider) and asserted that she was committed to the goals of the SLA. A warrant was issued for her arrest and in September 1975, she was arrested in a San Francisco apartment with other SLA members.

In her trial, which commenced on January 15, 1976, Hearst's attorney, F. Lee Bailey, claimed that she had been blindfolded, imprisoned in a narrow closet and physically and sexually abused. The claim that her actions were the result of a concerted brainwashing program was central to her defense. (Hearst's actions have also been attributed to Stockholm syndrome, in which hostages sympathize with the aims of their captors.) Bailey also argued that she had been coerced or intimidated into taking part in the bank robbery.

Legal analysts and Hearst herself later said that Bailey did a poor job defending her. He gave very short and weak closing arguments. Hearst was convicted of bank robbery on March 25, 1976. Her seven-year prison term was eventually commuted by President of the United States Jimmy Carter, and Hearst was released from prison on February 1, 1979, having served only twenty-two months. She was granted a full pardon by President Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001, the final day of his presidency.

Robert Stone in 2004 directed Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, which focuses on the media frenzy surrounding the Symbionese Liberation Army, and includes new footage and interviews. (The film was released in some countries under the title Neverland: The Rise and Fall of the Symbionese Liberation Army.)

Dissatisfied with other documentaries made on the subject, Hearst produced a special for the Travel Channel entitled Secrets of San Simeon with Patricia Hearst in which she took viewers inside her grandfather's mansion Hearst Castle, providing unprecedented access to the property. (A video and DVD were later released of the special.)

Hearst co-authored a novel with Cordelia Frances Biddle titled Murder at San Simeon (Scribner, 1996), based upon the death of Thomas Ince on her grandfather's yacht.

Boulton, David (1975). The Making of Tania Hearst, London: New English Library. ISBN 0-450-02351-6.

Hearst, Patricia Campbell; with Alvin Moscow (1988). Patty Hearst: Her Own Story, New York: Avon. ISBN 0-380-70651-2. First published in 1982 as Every Secret Thing.

McLellan, Vin; and Paul Avery (1977). The Voices of Guns: The Definitive and Dramatic Story of the Twenty-two-month Career of the Symbionese Liberation Army, One of the Most Bizarre Chapters in the History of the American Left, New York: Putnam. ISBN 0-399-11738-5.